


Clarity

by silver_fish



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Fantasy, Soulmates, chanting DUALITY DUALITY DUALITY, ft iconic lesbians!, heavy themes abt religion, my new years resolution was to work on my orig stuff more so Here We Are, strength vs weakness, this is old but i tried to fix up the Bad Writing i hope i succeeded LOL
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 13:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13342434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_fish/pseuds/silver_fish
Summary: Eliaza has always believed in her choices above fate. This, she thinks, is what has made her strong.But herama—her very soul—has dictated a fate for her that is far out of her control, and will lead her directly to the godly beings her obsessed scholar of a mother has been searching for since she was a kid, and right into the middle of a war between the holy and the evil, with everything Eliaza has ever loved at stake, in between it all.





	Clarity

**Author's Note:**

> h-hewwo,,,,,, so i do love writing fanfic and it is a Very Big Passion of mine but,,,, i was an orig writer first haha. and lately i've been wanting to get back into it again, with hopes of rewriting my novel (again FGHDJKS) this year. i have a lot of old orig stories which i'm working to polish up/rework/rewrite, and i figured they'd reach a larger audience if i posted them here! i've posted orig stuff on tumblr before, but it's been like...four years since i've posted on a platform like this haha. i still have lots of fics im writing tho so if you look forward to those they are coming!! i have two which are almost finished and ready to post.
> 
> this story i started writing about two years ago! my style has grown and changed a lot, but i still love this story and was really excited to finish it up. it was inspired by [the duality challenge](http://diarycrux.tumblr.com/post/72153426952/a-challenge-for-graphic-makers-fanfic-writers-or) which is. pretty old but still super cool so!!! this was for the first prompt, strength | weakness. it's split into two major sections, or chapters, one for each. i really hope you enjoy! <3

It’s like this, she’s been told: You’re going to fall in love, and you’re going to take the world by storm and tear apart cities with it.

So it’s like this, she thinks: Love is going to break you.

Eliaza is _smarter_ than that. She reads the stories about _aluums_ and Vicans and fucking _unicorns_ and she thinks it’s all _bullshit_ , but her mom is always saying, “ _Sweetie, why are you such a pessimist? The Vicans know what’s best for you, you know! They picked your other half very carefully.”_ And then, when Eliaza scoffs, she adds, “ _And, you know, there are things in the world that would surprise you. I_ know _there are unicorns out there_.”

Eliaza doesn’t reply in these cases, because she knows how it goes: Bellis Wolfert is not _wrong_. Ever. It’s, like, some holy, amazing fact. “ _She’s a seer!_ ” people say, and then other people insist that, “ _No, she’s a_ Vican _!_ ”

It’s so _annoying_.

Bellis _is_ an intelligent woman, of course. Her great-great-great-something-or-other grandfather founded Wolfert Academy, the number one most prestigious school in the world, and his descendents have consistently been the top students there.

But, then again, Bellis believes in _unicorns_.

In her defence, though, she was one of the only Wolferts that _hadn’t_ attended Wolfert Academy. She’d gone to a nice little community school, and her father had tutored her after classes, and she’d been the top student from the beginning to the end. She probably could have beaten the professors there, if she’d wanted to, in a game of smarts or wits.

Eliaza doesn’t really _get_ her mother. She knows she’s a believer in things she can’t prove, and the idea that she can’t prove such things makes her positively _giddy_ , but she also knows she’s a damn-near certifiable genius whose entire family has been somehow _blessed_. After all, nobody’s really _born_ that smart, but the Wolferts have always been some kind of exception to the rule.

Bellis makes her living through telling people the things they want to hear. Smart as she may be with books, her real area of expertise lies within people’s eyes. She can always weed out the truth if she wants to see it. “ _Eyes are the window to the soul, Aza_ ,” she says sometimes, then pats Eliaza’s head and smiles brilliantly, but every once and a while Eliaza finds the words make her feel—well, _something_ . Angry, sometimes, she thinks, but then another part of her screams _inferior_.

Eliaza sometimes doesn’t feel like a Wolfert.

Her father, Arden, says he gets it, because he may have adopted the name, but it didn’t make him smarter overnight. Then they both laugh, but sometimes it feels like a hole in her chest. She’s _smart,_ technically, but she’s not really smart in the way her mother and her mother’s parents are. Bellis _expects_ things from her, and Arden expects nothing, and she, herself, is not sure where on that scale she sits.

The Vicans, assuming they’re real, are supposed to set up mortality beneath them. They choose which lives are to be created and which are to be taken and which are meant to be entangled. They select a fate for you carefully and then they say, “ _Here! Take this thing that’s going to hurt you a lot!_ ” and you have to deal with it because it’s fate, or whatever.

Every time a person is born, there supposedly is another person out there with the same _ama_ —essentially, the same _soul_ , but _ama_ is something a little bit deeper that everybody _knows_ but nobody can _explain_ —as that person. They’re generally born close in age, but apparently the Vicans couldn’t care less about distance.

It’s not necessarily a romantic thing. Not really. Some people don’t fall in _love_ with their _aluum_ —the person with the same _ama_ , that is—but it’s more common to be romantic _aluum_ than platonic ones.

Eliaza doesn’t think any of it’s _real_. She thinks _ama_ is an exaggeration and _aluum_ are basically just people who get lucky and find someone who has a rather dashing personality, and they spend the rest of their lives together.

But _Bellis_ has always insisted that everyone has an _aluum_ out there, and that they’ll know the instant they meet each other. Then Arden will smile and do something like kiss Bellis’s cheek and they’ll both say they were destined to be together, and so they are.

Arden, at least, doesn’t believe in unicorns.

So, Eliaza thinks, there’s fate and there are choices, and those two things cannot exist simultaneously. To do so would be to disrupt the balance in the world, the sort of harmony that only a common belief can bring.

Eliaza isn’t the only non-believer, but there’s no doubt she’s a minority within the world. The human condition has always made people believe in what is _easy_ , before what is _right_ , and having some mythical gods to blame one’s fate on is undeniably easier than simply taking the credit for it. To a point, she knows that it is something deeper than that. That people like Bellis believe for more reasons than that it is easier, but it is still difficult to understand. And people get _hostile_ , a lot of the time, when they learn she doesn’t believe in the Vicans. She’s less vocal about her beliefs than she used to be, but...

It doesn’t _change_ anything.

It’s like this, she’s been told: The Vicans chose this path for you.

So it’s like this, she thinks: You don’t get a choice.

* * *

Bellis often leaves for weeks at a time.

She’s searching for something she can’t find, that she can’t prove but desperately _wants_ to, the centre of everything, the middle of the world, the place where everything _intersects_. It’s called the _coupus_. Supposedly it’s where Courel, the upper land, the mythical place where Vicans dwell, and Ioufel, where all the evils in the world—referred to, generally, as the _maluus_ —lie in slumber meet. It’s a sort of “middle ground,” a place where the supernatural transcend the land. Beyond the _coupus_ , the Vicans can’t get out from their respective domains, but the _maluus_ _can_. Therefore, the way from Ioufel to the _coupus_ must be heavily guarded by the Vicans, so that _maluus_ can’t escape.

It really is a nicely woven story, but Eliaza doesn’t know if she thinks very highly of her mother for chasing after a myth as if it could give her life.

“ _They know everything_ ,” Bellis says, buzzing with excitement. “ _They could change your life, if you wanted them to_.”

“ _Do you want that?_ ” Eliaza asks, because she does not know what her mother wants. Indeed, Bellis is more a mystery than the Vicans ever could be.

Bellis eyes gleam with something bigger than them both. “ _No_!” she says, beaming. “ _I want to_ know _, Aza!_ ”

She hunts for unicorns, too, sometimes, but while they can grant the pure-hearted a wish, they cannot change somebody’s fate.

The Vicans...they _can_. They pull the strings, hang the stars, draw the paths and connect the dots. They’re the “game masters,” the ones moving life along, as if each person is merely a piece of a large chessboard.

Sometimes, Eliaza wouldn’t mind breaking free from _fate_. A bird from a cage, the dove trapped in the confines of a world telling it what it meant.

If someone would just let it, it could fly away.

How simple, she thinks. And yet.

The cage is still there.

* * *

“I want you to come with me.”

Eliaza starts at her mother’s voice from the door. She does not miss the slight vibration in Bellis’s voice, the hesitance, the open anxiety. She’s laying out her cards.

Eliaza considers them.

“Where?” she asks, as if she doesn’t know.

“I think I found it.” Bellis’s voice is small, like a child’s. As if she needs someone to hold her hand.

“And if you have?”

Maybe it’s a challenge. The again, maybe it’s not.

Bellis sighs and enters Eliaza’s room. She is a very small woman, barely over five feet, with long, wild hair, untameable yet still beautiful. But if there is anything about Bellis Wolfert that people notice, it’s her _eyes_. Blue, but silvery, like the moon reflecting its face in the ocean, harsh as waves, filled with emotion that almost makes them painful to look at and yet impossible to turn away from all at once.

“Aza, I don’t know,” she says, sitting heavily on Eliaza’s bed beside her. “I might need to get back into unicorn-hunting.”

Eliaza smiles faintly, but the worry lines around her mother’s lips are more prominent than usual, a small frown pushing her eyebrows together and her mouth tilted, as if in careful contemplation.

“Then I think you should leave it for now,” she suggests. “You know, until you figure it out.”

Bellis makes a face. “But I’ve thought I’ve found it before,” she says, turning her gaze to the ceiling. There are dim stars painted there that have been twinkling duller and duller for twelve years, now. “Something just feels _different_ this time.”

Eliaza taps her finger against the book in front of her, then closes it as softly as she can. “Are you asking me along because you think I have _bigger things_ waiting for me or whatever?”

Bellis laughs softly. “Maybe. Would you be angry if I was?”

Eliaza watches her mother’s eyes carefully. “No, probably not.”

“Why?”

She blinks, surprised. Neither of them expected any other answer. She is suddenly not sure if this question warrants a response or not.

“I suppose I’m just used to it,” she says, weighing the words in her mouth.

“Maybe,” Bellis agrees, but she casts her gaze slightly downward. “I’m sorry for making things this way. You deserve better than that.”

Eliaza waves a dismissive hand. These things are not _really_ about what she deserves. How can somebody who believes so wholly in fate decide what another deserves, anyway? Bellis has never had to consider things like if she is _deserving_ , because she simply _is_ . She lets life carry her, and she takes its outstretched hand when she falls. She can always rely on life to pick her up, because she has never doubted its ability to make her feel _human_.

Eliaza sometimes does not feel human.

“I think you need to know as much as I do,” Bellis continues.

“What makes this time so different?”

The question is pointless; she doesn’t know why she bothers asking.

“It just...is.”

Eliaza studies Bellis for a moment, then shakes her head. “What will you do if this is it?” she asks again.

Bellis’s eyes gleam strangely, a sort of light that makes her look _mad_ , but there is confidence, too. Perhaps she could make others mad as well, with that sort of certainty.

“I need to know,” she says, as if it is an answer. Perhaps, in some universe parallel to their own, it is. But here, the words ring annoyingly in Eliaza’s ears.

“ _Why_?” she demands. “Stop talking to me like that.”

Bellis’s eyes are apologetic as she reaches a hand forward and tilts Eliaza’s chin upward, forcing her gaze to the ceiling. “Look,” she says. “You remember when we painted those, right? Do you remember what you said to me before we did?”

She painted them with Bellis and Arden, when she was about five years old. Bellis and Eliaza were never the types for art, but Arden covered all of their amateur mistakes, thinking they didn't notice. They did, but Eliaza wasn’t mad then, and she isn’t mad now. Her parents have always done the best for her.

“No,” she says.

Bellis smiles, a sad sort of smile. “You said, ‘Mom, I don’t think I can sleep if I don’t know the stars are really there.’ And I said, ‘don’t you see them out your window?’ but you told me it just...wasn’t the same."

The stars have always been comforting, even now, twelve years after.

“They remind me of you and Dad,” she says.

Bellis laughs slightly, but Eliaza is not sure there’s anything to laugh at.

“The Vicans gave me something beautiful, Aza,” she murmurs, and Eliaza lowers her eyes. They are very, very close. She suddenly feels much younger than she is. “They gave me this life, but they gave me more than most.”

Eliaza’s mouth goes dry. “What would that be?” she asks, voice unsteady. Whether with trepidation or with exhilaration, it’s hard to say.

“The ability to see,” Bellis says, as if it’s a confession.

Eliaza furrows her eyebrows. “What—?”

“Other _people_!” she insists, leaning back. “Their very souls! What makes them the way they are! Aza, don’t you understand? They gave me this and a great gift, and so I must give something back!”

“What can you give back to _demors_?" She raises an eyebrow and tries not to scowl. “They already have everything! What can you give them that they couldn't just take if they wanted it?”

“My gratitude," Bellis offers. “My service. My _life_.”

Eliaza opens her mouth to respond, then abruptly closes it. “Your _life_? What in Ioufel are you talking about?”

“Don’t say that,” Bellis chastises, then catches Eliaza’s look and deflates. “It’s just...if I’ve really found it, I need to give something. And...in a way, I’ve already given my life to them, haven’t I?"

Eliaza stands up, scowling. She doesn’t look at her mother. “That’s so fucking _selfish_!”

“ _Aza_ ,” Bellis says, but she’s not angry. Tired, maybe, but not angry. Never angry.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” She whirls around and throws an accusing finger towards her mother. “What about Dad? What about me? What about Granddad and Grandma? What about Aunt Taliyah?”

“Aza, please, you need to understand.” Bellis stands too, now, and reaches out for Eliaza’s hand. She swiftly pulls it away. Bellis steps back, eyes flashing. Eliaza doesn’t know if she doesn’t care about it or if she cares too much.

“What is there to understand?” she asks, and perhaps it is too cold, because Bellis flinches.

“Please,” she whispers. “Aza, please. This is my dream. I—”

“Your dream is to give your life up?”

The silence is charged, spread out around them like a taut wire. Perhaps it has already snapped. Perhaps they now are watching, shocked as the people it held up fall into the looming expanse of darkness below.

It is not a question of belief. Rather, it is not a question of Eliaza's beliefs. Bellis believes, and so there is no question to be asked. The simple truth seems to be that she genuinely wants to give up her life to the Vicans. Maybe Eliaza is not within her rights to be angry, because she does not think the Vicans exist anyway, but she is. She is so, so angry.

“Come with me,” Bellis says, and the words echo around the empty room.

Eliaza _feels_ her anger leave her, like steam from a warmed kettle.

“Will you wait?”

Bellis faces her with achingly silent eyes. “I'll always wait for you, Aza.”

_Then don't go,_ she wants to say, but she knows it is not a matter of choice anymore.

“I’ll...think about it.”

But she does not need to think.

“Okay,” Bellis says, then moves her hand, as if to reach out for Eliaza before dropping it, seemingly having thought better. “Okay,” she says again, and she leaves the room with the door closed behind her.

It is not okay.

The stars on the ceiling have never looked so dull.

* * *

Arden is incredibly talented. But he’s one of those people who won’t _admit it_. While he and Bellis are supposed to be _aluum_ , Eliaza sees the giant shadow Bellis casts over him, how he shrinks himself to fit into it.

It’s just—Bellis is _smart_. Gifted. A prodigy or something. Arden just...is. He’s decidedly _average_ , in every sense Bellis decidedly _isn’t_.

Except that he can draw _anything_.

Eliaza used to watch in wonder while he drew things, because he always seemed to fall in love with pen and paper, with the lines and the shadows and the _drawing_. He looks at paper the way he looks at Bellis: infatuated, intrigued, and absolutely inspired.

He has ink in his veins where Eliaza is sure she holds blood. The very thing that makes him human is humanity itself, taking form within his _art_ —the silky flow of a pen beneath his hand, the precision, the simple _sense_ of it all. It’s a powerful thing, maybe, but, then, it’s also poetic, in a sense. And yet, perhaps power and poetry are not different things at all.

Eliaza and Bellis are the only two people who even _know_ that Arden is so expressive. Most people know him only as Bellis’s husband, and some figure he’s some sort of recluse. Well, she supposes he sort of _is_ , but it’s mostly just that his friends are Bellis’s friends and that he just...doesn’t _need_ to be there.

When Eliaza was younger and someone asked her to define _introvert_ , she probably would have said _my dad_ , and nobody would have been able to argue with it. After all, _everyone_ knows the Wolferts. When you carry such a big last name, it’s hard to go by unnoticed.

Arden grew up as something _else_. Nobody expected him to do great things, because he didn’t _need_ to do great things.

So, what’s worse, Eliaza wonders: To be thought great and fail, or to be thought nothing and remain nothing?

That’s sort of what brings her and Arden together, beyond a typical father-daughter bond. Eliaza, though _intelligent_ , isn’t really smart _enough_. And Arden is technically _below_ average. Whereas Bellis could sing her timetables from the time she was five onwards because she could do the math _fast enough_ , Eliaza spent time to carefully memorize each part, and Arden just never bothered.

“ _You have an amazing memory_ ,” he tells her often, but she shakes her head and says, “ _No, I’m just...industrious, I suppose._ ” Then he contemplates her for a moment. Maybe he frowns. Then he says, “ _What’s that mean?_ ”

It is true that Eliaza _does_ remember things well, though. It’s why she’s any good at school at all.

But the boy next door has a pretty decent memory, too, if the time he told Eliaza every single birthday gift he’d ever gotten in his life counted for anything.

The difference between Eliaza and Arden, though, is that Eliaza does everything humanly possible to be her _own_ person. Eliaza Wolfert is not someone she _wants_ to be. Eliaza Wolfert is an expectation, and Eliaza does not want to be an expectation.

Arden, though, tries hard to _be_ Arden Wolfert. It’s a married name, but, somehow, it still belongs to him.

Traditionally, a person doesn’t even _take_ their spouse’s name, and, if they do, it’s common to keep the other one, regardless. Eliaza guesses there’s probably a pretty good reason why Arden just _dropped_ his, but she’s not so sure she wants to know. Arden is a mystery, too. A different kind than Bellis, but a mystery, nonetheless.

A _talented_ mystery.

Whereas Bellis is a public figure, world-renowned for something as seemingly simple as _knowing_ , Arden keeps his beautiful creations in the basement of their home. Eliaza and Bellis are lucky if they get to see something he’s made, but, often, he uses them as models.

They have a _great_ family, really. Maybe Bellis’s _existence_ makes Arden and Eliaza feel less, but that’s not to say she doesn’t love them.

But she would give herself to the Vicans, regardless of that love.

“What’s on your mind, _dipuel_?”

Eliaza lets out a long breath and shrugs. “Society,” she says.

Arden pauses and gives her a strange look. “What about it?”

“You know, how generally messed-up it is.”

“I see,” he says seriously, then readjusts himself to look at his canvas in a different light. Thought typically more into drawing, he’s been trying out different kinds of paints on Belli’s suggestion. “Anything in particular got you thinking about that?”

“The _coupus_.”

“Isn’t that Mom’s thing?”

Eliaza snorts. “Yeah, that’s it. She said she thinks she found it. And she wants me to check it out with her.”

He sets down the paintbrush with a dirty look, as if it has personally insulted him, then turns to Eliaza with concerned green eyes. “And what do you want?”

Eliaza heaves a huge sigh and leans back in her chair. “I’m going with her. It’s just...well, I don’t know. She said she has to give back to the Vicans and I—”

Arden makes an odd, exasperated sort of noise and she lifts her head up to look at him.

“She’s not indebted to them,” he says darkly, scowling. “She goes on and on about how she owes them _this_ and how she owes them _that_ , but she doesn’t understand that what they’ve given her is a _gift_. If someone gives you a gift, what do you do?”

“Thank them and hope to see them next year?” Eliaza suggests.

Arden nods. “But your mother thinks the Vicans gave her some sort of...blessing or something. She wasn’t like this when we got married. If I try to pinpoint the moment I figured out she was obsessed with the Vicans the way she is, it was probably almost a year after you were born.” He makes a strange face. “She’s says they gave her vision, the ability to see other people’s _ama_ . But she never said she was _blessed_ before you were born.”

“So, what? You think she’s telling me that she has the ability to see, but that the blessing she’s referring to is something entirely different?”

“Well, maybe.” He drums his fingers on his knee thoughtfully. “I won’t pretend to completely understand her, though.”

_They gave me this and a great gift..._

Eliaza doesn’t believe in _ama_ , but, then again...

“Do you...do you think she sees something...in _me_?”

Arden’s look is suddenly severe. “There is nothing wrong with you, El,” he says sternly. “If you’re worried, ask her. But I promise there’s nothing wrong with you.” He smiles slightly and adds, “You’re _disgustingly_ normal.”

She studies him for a moment, then lets her shoulders fall. _Ama_ isn’t real, anyway, she reasons. Her mother is just good at reading people.

_Their eyes!_ she said. _Their very souls!_

“How can you see something like that, anyway?” she asks, frowning. “You don’t think she could just be...normal? Seeing something the rest of us see too?”

Arden shakes his head. “I don’t think so, El.”

Her head is beginning to ache. “I don’t believe in it,” she says, because it feels necessary.

“But you don’t deny it could exist,” he replies mildly, picking up his paintbrush once again. a look of severe determination in his eyes.

Eliaza opens her mouth to reply, suddenly hot at the accusation, and then she stops. Blinks.

Doesn’t she, though? Bellis always tells her off for it. They argue about it all the time. The _this_ and the _that._  The _hows_ and the _buts_ and whatever else happened to fall between them. She doesn’t believe in any of it.

But, then, as she watches her father attempt to paint again, she feels rather sad. Maybe, she thinks, it is less about whether or not it exists.

After all, here’s fate and there are choices, but maybe, sometimes, they all lead to the same place anyway.

* * *

“I want you to promise me.”

Bellis jumps slightly, but Eliaza remains still, watching her mother from the doorway.

“Promise you what?” she asks, turning in her chair, frowning.

“That you’ll listen to me. _Actually_ listen. Not that half-assed ‘ _I hear what you’re saying, but I know I’m right, so I don’t care’_ thing you usually do.”

Bellis frowns at her, but she doesn’t say anything. Eliaza steps in and closes the door behind her.

Bellis’s office is _cluttered_. It’s cluttered, but is in such a way that it seems as if the mess is intentional. If Eliaza didn’t know better, she would assume her mother is trying to impress, but she _does_ know better, and the thing about Bellis Wolfert is that she _knows_. So, the one time she doesn’t know something, she’s going to make a mess to find it.

The stacks of paper are actually organized by date, however. Most people would probably put these things in folders, but Bellis reads each and every report so often she could probably recite them in her sleep.

She is not someone who is _interested_ in knowing, but someone who _must_ know.

“I’m listening,” she says.

Eliaza tears her eyes away from the desk and nods slowly. “Right,” she says, and the words feel very dry on her tongue. “You’re antsy. You want to go now.”

“Of course I do,” Bellis agrees. “But I also said I would wait for you to decide.”

“I have,” Eliaza says.

Bellis beams and opens her mouth to respond, but Eliaza puts her hand up and shakes her head.

“But I need to know what you want.”

Bellis freezes, then blinks. “What do you mean?” she asks, suddenly very sceptical.

“Do you want to become a sacrifice?” Eliaza crosses her arms and shifts her weight to her left side, feeling both very exasperated and anxious at the same time.

“I would give my life to the Vicans, if they would take it, yes.”

They watch each other for a moment.

“Tell me how you’re blessed,” Eliaza says.

“I _have_ , Aza.” Bellis furrows her eyebrows. “ _Many_ times. I can see _ama_. I always just said I could see people’s souls, because I know you don’t—”

“Believe in _ama_ , yeah.” Eliaza sighs and shifts to the right. “But Dad said something different.”

“What would that be?”

Eliaza studies Bellis’s eyes. They are closed off, guarded, as if she has stepped too close to a secret.

“He said you didn’t say you were blessed until after I was born.”

Bellis laughs, an odd sort of sound, as if it is accidental but entirely on purpose. It rings with relief and good humour, and she’s still smiling when she shakes her head. “My parents always said I was blessed, from the time I was a kid and on. It took me a while to believe it is all. He just didn’t notice, I think. You know how he can be.” Her smile is thin, her eyes shadowy.

“I don’t believe you,” Eliaza says, “but I won’t argue.” She pauses, raises her hand to her face and studies her fingers. “Next time, don’t bother lying,” she advises.

Bellis watches her carefully. A long moment stretches between them. Finally, she says “I won’t,” and there is no denial in her voice. She is not insulted. Her tone suggests she is thinking.

“When are we leaving?”

Bellis doesn’t smile as she had before. “Whenever you want.”

“Tomorrow,” Eliaza says immediately and Bellis raises an eyebrow, slightly, a small _are you sure_?

When Eliaza says nothing more, though, the look fades away.

“Pack for a few days,” is all she says as Eliaza leaves her office.

Bellis used to tell her to never settle for less, because there’s always more somewhere. She wonders, briefly, if Bellis’s _something more_ lies at the _coupus_.

Or, perhaps, it is not Bellis’s they are searching for.

There is great power in knowing, but power always breeds corruption.

* * *

Arden draws a flower on her hand the next morning.

“What is it?” she asks, because she does not know.

He smiles slightly. “Moonlace,” he tells her. “Look—it only blooms in the night.”

“What does it mean?”

Bellis watches them silently a few feet away. “It’s symbolic of lost love,” she says.

Eliaza blinks, but Arden merely shakes his head.

“It represents a guardian absent in form,” he explains. “Because we sleep at night, but moonlace blossoms during that time. The story behind it is that the Vicans created moonlace so that they knew something would watch the world while they slept.”

“ _Demors_ don’t need sleep,” Eliaza reminds him.

“All beings need rest, El,” he says gravely.

“I didn’t know that,” Bellis murmurs.

“An absence of knowledge doesn’t mean an absence of ability,” Arden says, then grins at her.

She smiles back softly, eyes more open than they have been in days.

“But,” he says, “it can also be symbolic of lost love. That’s a different story about how moonlace came to be.”

“What is it?” Eliaza prompts, eager.

He frowns. “Something about a girl who turns into a flower? Seems less likely to me than the other version. That one has a better moral, too.”

“Moral?”

“Sure.” He grins. “When you have a job, take it in shifts so you never miss anything. A bit silly of them to all sleep at the same time.”

Eliaza rolls her eyes and Bellis laughs.

“Be home soon,” he says, then he wraps her in a hug.

Arden is more or less average height, with rather strong arms. He always manages to be soft, though, the sort of person you would want to cry on, if offered the chance. Eliaza looks more like him than like Bellis, but she falls in between them when it comes to general body size. She isn’t thin, per se, but she isn’t _strong_ , either. Her height is a little under six inches more than Bellis, but almost a full seven less than Arden, probably. Her hair, though, between blonde and brown, is Arden’s. Her eyes, too, are the same forest green of her father’s. They have the same face, the same narrow lips and small nose.

Eliaza is lucky, really, that she has Arden.

“Love you,” she mutters against his cheek, and he pats the top of her head.

She steps back and Bellis takes her place, standing on her toes to press a short kiss on Arden’s lips.

“See you in a few days,” she says with a tight smile, but her eyes are very sad.

Arden meets Eliaza’s gaze slowly, then nods and turns to smile at Bellis again.

“Well, I have to turn customers away until you get back as it is. Wouldn’t want to keep them waiting forever, you know.” There’s an odd lilt to his voice that isn’t quite humour.

“It’s not dangerous,” Bellis says, but something incomprehensible flashes in her eyes as she turns toward Eliaza, and her lips twist as if she is trying not to say something.

Eliaza makes her way to the door, Bellis close behind. As she goes to open it, however, she heard Arden call out behind them, “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t ask of someone else!”

They both pause, but Eliaza is sure they are thinking wildly different things.

_Don’t sacrifice yourself,_ is what Eliaza hears, but Bellis does not say anything else.

A moment stretches between them, then Eliaza yanks open the door. She cannot deny that her hands are shaking, but she desperately wishes they would not. The summer’s breeze greets her, roaring in her ears, wrapping around her body, comforting and familiar, yet, somehow, summer has never felt so cold.

* * *

The _coupus_ is one thing that many people _don’t_ believe in. While the common belief is that the Vicans exist, there is very little agreement on Courel, Ioufel, and the _coupus_.

Eliaza does not understand why so many can accept _demors_ in the form of Vicans, but are less inclined to believe it when it comes to the _maluus_ . Technically speaking, the _maluus_ aren’t actually _demors,_ though; a _demor_ is a being of pure _energy_ , one with the ability to construct things where the laws of matter would typically disallow it. _Maluu_ , however, are commonly referred to as _soumas_ —nightmares, really—because they are, for the most part, considered to be the embodiment of the people’s bad dreams.

_Maluus_ are the things that parents tell their children about in hopes they will not fall prey to their dreams.

Eliaza used to have bad dreams rather often. To a point, she still does, but now they seem less like _bad_ dreams and more simply like a disturbance during the night. She used to dream of fire and of war and of people she loved dying, but now she simply finds that she is more likely to awaken in the night from the sensation of falling than of anything else.

Something about her has always been broken, she thinks, but, then, all she has known is how to deal with it.

Dreams are so powerful; things that control the mind completely and hinder a person’s ability to think clearly. Clarity, clarity, clarity—that is the thing Eliaza has been searching for. She told Bellis this, once, a whispered, scared thing: “ _I want clarity_. _I can’t hear my thoughts over my heart beating._ ”

Then Bellis had pressed a palm against her chest, breathed in which each rapid pulsation of Eliaza’s heart. “ _I see you_ ,” she had said, but Eliaza does not believe it, when she can’t even see herself.

Eliaza Wolfert is an expectation, but Eliaza is not. Instead she is a roaring, wild thing, of chaos and infinite fates and _choice_. She is noise and desire and spitting anger. She is determination and clever risk-taking.

Eliaza Wolfert is an expectation, but Eliaza is a beautiful, terrifying thing.

She often dreams she is falling. Sometimes, even when her eyes are wide and her mind wholly hers, she loses her grip.

_Falling, falling, falling_.

It is poetic, she thinks, but it is truly, utterly devastating. An abyss threatens to swallow her from underneath, but the sky above simply weeps, little tears splashing over her face. They are clear, transparent.

_Clarity_.

Truly, utterly devastating.

* * *

Eliaza used to think Bellis trod a path she could not follow.

Now, they stand side-by-side and look upon a forest.

Bellis’s breath comes out slowly, excitedly, something beautiful in the way she lets it out, as if _this_ is her meaning, the reason she exists. _Aluum_ means nothing to her anymore. Arden is something she once loved, but now she is only capable of loving _this_ , and her soul has been crafted for this simple moment, a forest and a whistling wind.

“Do you feel it, Aza?” she asks, hushed but with shining eyes.

Her skin tingles and her limbs feel heavy. Somewhere, far away, she hears a whisper in a language she can understand but words she cannot.

“It’s a forest,” she replies, small.

Bellis gives her a long, considering look, then takes a step forward. She inhales deeply. “ _Inera tounbre et liumou_ ,” she says, the words bigger than her body, like magic. Enchanting, possessive. They spread out around them.

_Between darkness and light_.

Eliaza does not want to go into this place.

“Is it safe?” she asks sceptically.

Bellis turns to face her, beaming. “This is the time you would tell me to put faith into _positive risk-taking_! I think nothing can be achieved if we worry it is unsafe. Let’s check it out.”

This is not _positive risk-taking_. There is no _positive_ part of this. Eliaza’s chest is tight, her pulse racing, blood burning, everything in her screaming _danger_. Each breath she takes feels torn from her, all too measurable, as if she cannot be sure it won’t be her last.

“I don’t like this,” she says quietly.

“ _Inera tounre et limou_ ,” Bellis repeats, turning to her with severe eyes. “It’s safe. It has to be. Aza, I would never hurt you.”

“You just said you didn’t care.”

Bellis’s eyes are pained. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I _don’t_ care if it’s unsafe, but I care if you’re in danger. You know that, don’t you? I love you.”

“I don’t like this,” Eliaza says again, a little louder.

“I can’t leave now, Aza.”

Laying out her cards.

Eliaza _aches_ , a mix of terror and dread and the inevitable _what-if_ to a _will-be_.

“I won’t leave you here,” she insists, and pushes past her mother.

_Danger, danger, danger,_ sings around her, but Bellis calls, “ _Wait!_  Aza!” and her voice cracks with something _bigger_ , a cosmic force, fate and _ama_ and _something more_. It is chaos. There is no clarity here. There is dread and there is excitement and there is coldness and there is boiling heat and there is denial and there is belief and there are two of them, a sinner, a saint, a sinner, a saint.

The forest’s mouth is large and unwelcoming. Eerie, perhaps. The branches tangle with each other above, creating a twisted archway, with branches sticking out awkwardly at different angles, sort of like _teeth_. The trees hum with old, ancient energy. They are very large, thousands upon thousands of years keeping them alive.

Eliaza suddenly understand what brought her mother here, but her ears roar and her heart thumps and she cannot stop _thinking_ —

“Be careful—,” Bellis starts from behind her, but she turns and glares, and her mother doesn’t speak again.

The forest is dark, a dizzying sort of darkness, the sort that haunts dreams; it is the blackness of people’s hearts or the sickest sludge of humanity, the seeds of hatred within each person.

Eliaza does not like this place.

It’s _cold_. The trees loom above them as if watching them for missteps. Somewhere, a voice coos, and Eliaza takes an almost involuntary step back.

“Mom,” she says. “Are there—are there animals in this forest?”

“None you’d believe in,” Bellis replies mildly, not seeming to feel the same thing Eliaza is. She watches the plants sway around them, a tantalizing dance to her that is something ritualistic to Eliaza, the sort of thing ancient people did before they sacrificed someone to the Vicans.

“Then what is that?” she demands, whirling around to face her mother. “That _noise_. It’s like a—”

It sounds like muffled words around them: … _el …a…naia_. It is unmistakably _human_. Something that can mimic humans, perhaps? There must be some kind of creature that can do that, she thinks.

“There’s no noise, Aza.” Bellis frowns at her, as if she hasn’t seen her in a long time. Maybe she hasn’t. “The wind, but...nothing else.”

“ _No_ , it’s there!” she insists, and she immediately chastises herself for the volume of her voice. Lowering it, she says, “It’s—it’s like a _person_. It sounds a bit like...like broken _Alegus_.”

Bellis lets out a slow breath. “There are stories, Aza,” she says quietly, cautiously. “Lots of stories. The more you dig, the more...the more horrifying they get. That’s where the idea of _maluus_ comes from—the darker parts of the stories. But...there’s one, about people who can hear Vicans. They say it either means the Vicans have selected them for higher life, or that they’re going to die soon.” She looks troubled. “I don’t want to believe it could be true, but—”

“Then don’t believe it,” Eliaza says flatly. “They’re called stories for a _reason_. I—”

_…eli …ajust …ai_ …

Suddenly, a spot behind her eyes explodes in pain. The edges of her vision dull with black. The forest in front of her tilts violently, throwing her balance off and depositing her inelegantly on the ground.

_Mag… …st nai…_

“Aza!” Bellis—she is sure it is Bellis—calls from far away, some thousand miles from where she is. It’s like a tunnel, never-ending, dark at all ends.

Chaos, chaos, chaos.

She can hear her breaths as they puff out in front of her, heavy and shaky. Her fingers feel around, touch for anything she can’t see through her blurred eyes. They vibrate with emotion, bones rattling and knocking together.

_…iel… sa… na…_

Her chest rises and falls raggedly against the agonizing sear behind her eyes. Her heartbeat is too fast, too shallow; she is hyperaware of everything and yet aware of nothing at the same time.

It’s gone as quickly as it comes. A quick, painful breath forces its way out of her throat, burning her chest. Her eyes flutter and her body seizes up.

“Aza!” Bellis says again, and she’s right there, holding her hand as if it’s the only thing left in the world. “ _Demors_ above! Are you okay?”

Eliaza swallows and looks up at her mother. “There’s something here,” she whispers, then winces as the sound pounds against her head.

“You don’t think it could be Vicans, do you?” Bellis asks, deathly quiet. “I think we need to keep going. I think it’s bigger than us both.”

Eliaza feels herself stiffen. “ _What_? No way! We could die. Mom, _listen_ , this is dangerous. We shouldn’t _be_ here.”

“What do you mean?”

Eliaza looks up at the trees, at their taunting, looming branches. “Whatever’s here doesn’t want us here,” she says thickly. “Or—or maybe it does. The _coupus_ goes to Ioufel _and_ Courel. Maybe—maybe it’s not the Vicans.”

“You said you didn’t believe in it,” Bellis shoots back sceptically.

“I’ll believe in anything if it means keeping us alive!” Eliaza shouts, then covers her mouth and swallows.

The trees creak around them, the wind growing stronger, stronger, stronger. Her aggravated voice echoes around them and the bushes and shrubs dance almost _angrily_.

And then it all starts to _move_.

The trees shuffle sideways and the bushes and shrubs follow more slowly. They go off to one side or another, and none are left in the middle. All that remains is a dirt path. Never trodden-on, but somehow worn.

“Maybe it’s a way out,” Bellis says softly.

Eliaza’s hands shake. “Or maybe it’s a way forward.”

Bellis stands up slowly. “I’m going,” she says.

Eliaza’s head pounds. Her body shakes and trembles. But she purses her lips and stumbles to her feet, anyway. Her legs quake beneath her, and she forces herself to stand straighter.

“I won’t let you go alone,” she says, as determined as her broken voice can allow, which is, admittedly, not much at all.

Bellis gives her a scrutinizing look, then nods. Her eyes are tragic, the saddest story painted within them.

They walk on together.

* * *

The path is dark and empty, yet it feels very crowded to Eliaza. Whispers push and pull at her, trying to coax her off the trail, into something even darker than this road. She keeps her head straight as best she can and tries to block the words out, but her head pounds dully with them, making it impossible to focus on anything else.

Bellis gives her sideways glances as they walk. It’s either a way out or a way further in. Eliaza doesn’t need to be able to see people’s souls to know that Bellis wants it to be the latter. But, of course, no mother could think such a thing and not feel guilty leading her daughter into such a thing; the guilt on Bellis’s face is painstakingly obvious.

Eventually, the path opens up into a clearing. It has a much different feeling from the nightmarishness of the rest of the forest. This spot has sunlight shining beautifully on the grass, greener than any grass Eliaza has ever seen, and the breeze, though slight, is slightly warm and very welcoming. There is a smell coming from somewhere that makes Eliaza feel as though she ought to stop and sleep.

She hears Bellis’s breath catch from beside her, and the feeling vanishes.

“This is it,” Bellis whispers. “It has to be.”

She takes a step forward, hypnotized by it. The warmth, the colours...it’s the place everyone is looking for without knowing they are looking for it.

But Bellis knows.

“Mom, we can’t—”

Bellis turns to face her, to reprimand her, maybe, but an inhuman noise behind her stops her before she can speak. It’s like a shout, like words, but they are broken up and dirtied things.

Behind the noise, there _are_ words being chanting. _Magieli, sajust naia_. _Magieli, sajust naia. Magieli, sajust naia._

And then Eliaza sees the creatures saying it. In front is the one who made the first noise. It looks feline at a distance, but as it slowly crawls forward, she realizes it has wings and long limbs, but that it is now crouched down, trying to—remain hidden, perhaps?

It’s pure black, darker than anything she has ever seen. Behind it are dozens upon dozens more of the same creatures.

She stares for a moment, and then the one in front straightens up. It can’t be much taller than six feet, but it seems to tower over them. Its wings spread out twice as long as its height.

She can feel her legs beginning to shake. “ _Mom!_ ” she screams, and the creature begins to run at the same time as she does.

They reach Bellis at the same time and the creature hisses at her, but they make up words: “ _He scraficin nustre_!”

Eliaza pushes it with as much force as she can muster, but it pushes back and she falls to the ground, something in her making a gross cracking sound. She winces, but goes to stand up and reach for her mother again.

The creature snarls at her. “ _Eit moraia nio ist kih_!”

It takes a step back, holding Bellis, now slumped in its arms like some kind of ragdoll. The creatures behind it scream out a bird-like call; it hits Eliaza’s ears like teeth scraping against metal.

“ _Mom_!” she calls again, but as she reaches out, the creatures twist gracefully on their feet and fade into the shadows. A foul stench fills the air in their absence, and the silence seems to echo around her. The forest is empty, but it seems so full, somehow.

She takes a deep breath, eyes watering. “ _Mom_! _Mom_!”

But there is no response.

“She will not come back,” someone behind her says, and she starts, _tries_ to run, but winds up tripping on her feet and falling flatly on her butt.

She looks up at the speaker, and finds herself looking at three people. Or, what she _thinks_ are people.

Scrambling to her feet, she points an accusatory finger at the one in the middle, who has just spoken to her. He isn’t _tall_ , exactly, but he is not _short_ . Particularly, he seems so full of _something_ that he appears to loom above his two female companions.

“Who are you?” Eliaza demands. Her own finger shakes so violently it almost aches.

“I am Areya,” he says, dipping his head slightly. “This”—he gestures to the woman on his right—“is Ayis.” Pointing to the one on his left, he adds, “And that’s Klaris.”

Klaris.

_Clarity_.

Eliaza watches the one on the left in interest, the fear and hostility draining out of her quickly. She has dark hair, bright, _golden_ eyes, high arching, almost inquisitive eyebrows. Her skin, many shades darker than Eliaza’s, is unblemished for but a small frown as she watches Eliaza just as closely as Eliaza is studying her.

Perhaps she should feel inadequate in comparison, but that feeling is not there. Klaris is _pretty_ , golden, brilliant, but she does not exist to _outshine_. She is simply a beautiful thing. Eliaza has never ignored beautiful things.

There’s something else, though a small tug in her gut, the vaguest spark somewhere in her mind, in her memory.

“Do I know you?” she asks, dazed.

Klaris studies her for a moment longer, then says, “I think I would have remembered.”

Her voice is smooth, silken; it is very mild and soft, the warmest of summer’s days. Eliaza takes a deep breath and nods slowly.

“My apologies,” she says quietly.

Ayis narrows her eyes at Eliaza, scrutinizing. “We have given you our names, but we do not know yours.”

“Eliaza,” she says. “Eliaza Wolfert. I...my mother...”

Her throat feels very thick, suddenly. She glances back to where the creatures disappeared from.

“They’ve taken her as a sacrifice,” Areya explains. “She must have something they want.”

“Something they _want_?” Eliaza shakes her head quickly. “That’s _stupid_. She’s just a person! What _were_ those things, anyway?”

Ayis frowns at her. “ _Maluus_ ,” she says slowly. “I imagine they’ve taken her back to Ioufel.”

“ _Maluus_?” Eliaza scowls. “That’s fucking ridiculous. _What were those things_?”

“Oh my,” Areya mutters. Raising his voice, he asks, “You’re human?”

Eliaza stares at him.

Ayis looks between them, incredulous. “Areya, she _can’t_ be! Don’t you feel that?”

Eliaza stares at her.

Klaris suggests, “Perhaps we should talk to the council.”

Eliaza lets out a long, ragged breath. “ _What_?” The grass feels rather uneven beneath her feet; in fact, her legs are rather wobbly all on their own.

“The council dictates the major law of the land,” Klaris explains. “They also tell the _fambrias_ what to do—you know, what to make happen.”

“What to make happen,” Eliaza echoes. Her head _hurts_. Eliaza Wolfert is smart. She doesn’t not understand things.

She does not understand.

“Yeah. I imagine they probably have you ‘on file,’ so to speak.” Klaris frowns at her, tilting her head, eyes flashing with concern. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m _great_!” Eliaza says, laughing in such a way that Klaris flinches slightly. She finds she very much does not care anymore. “My mother just got dragged to—what, Ioufel? And I’m supposed to believe that all this _shit_ is real, but I’ve had a pretty heavy stance against this my whole life, so _you know what_? I want a _straight answer_. _What were those things_ _and who the fuck are you_?”

Ayis sighs. “We’ve already told you,” she says, irritated. “Those were _maluus_. We came from Courel. We’re on watch, but we can’t interfere with humans who wander to the _coupus_ and whatever the _maluus_ do with them.” She shrugs. “The _maluus_ know that too. We just watch so they don’t get out of the _coupus_. Naturally, they gravitate towards humans, though.”

“I’m human,” Eliaza says, but she feels dizzy.

“Are you?” Ayis raises an eyebrow. “You don’t _feel_ human.”

“Ayis,” Areya chastises. “We’ll take her back with us. She clearly needs rest, and I imagine Klaris is right. The council will almost certainly be able to explain this.”

Ayis’s lips pull down in a frown. “Fine,” she says, turning away slightly. “But if we’re letting one of those _demons_ into Courel, I won’t be taking any of the blame.”

“Ayis?” Klaris rubs her hand over her mouth, masking a small sigh, as Ayis turns to face her. “Shut up.”

Ayis scowls.

Eliaza blinks a few times. The ground makes an endless swirl beneath her feet.

Where only some time ago—hours, maybe? Or perhaps mere minutes?—there had been a voice chasing her down and an unbearable pain in her head, there is now silence and a Bellis-shaped hole in her chest. Every breath she takes is agonizing, as if the oxygen will start a fire in her chest, and her eyes prickle painfully, but she does not think she is going to _cry_.

“I want to go home,” she says as largely and as steadily as she can manage. Klaris, Ayis, and Areya look at her with wide eyes, as if they have forgotten she can speak. “I want my mother back, and I want to go home, and I want to forget—whatever that was.” She inhales deeply, and her entire body shakes with the force of it. “I would rather continue on with my happy, ignorant existence than go to _Courel_ with you. What am I supposed to believe? That you’re _Vicans_?”

Ayis and Areya share an amused look.

Klaris says, “We are.”

Eliaza laughs nastily. “Yeah, _right_. You look like _people_.”

Klaris frowns. “We don’t, really. We can tell each other from humans because we can see _ama_ and Vicans have very different _ama_ than humans. We do have wings, though, so that’s...not really very human.”

“Wings.” Eliaza scoffs. “Yeah, okay. And I have duck feet.”

Ayis glances down at her feet. “You stand somewhat like a duck,” she remarks, but it is does not seem to be intended as an insult.

Eliaza crosses her arms over her chest, scowl deepening. “I wasn’t being _serious_. I’m a fucking person. People don’t have _duck feet_. People don’t have _wings_!”

“Well, we aren’t people, so...” Ayis makes a strange face. “You don’t _have_ to come to Courel with us, but you aren’t going to be able to find your way home from here, if you’re human. Not to mention, if you want your mother back, you’re going to need _help_.”

Klaris sighs, giving Ayis an irritated sideways glance before turning back to Eliaza with kind yet sad eyes. “We aren’t going to force you or anything,” she says softly. “It’s just that the council will most likely know what happened to your mother, as well as why you don’t feel human to us.”

Eliaza’s hands tremble.

“Bullshit,” she says, but she knows it is not

“You can trust us,” Klaris says, studying her intently. “I— _we_ will keep you safe.”

Her eyes shine so kindly; her voice rings with such clarity, such genuine _reason_. It makes Eliaza _ache_. Between them lie a thousand words they cannot speak, that they do not know. There is a spark of _something_ , a cosmic clash of fate, or a million years before them.

Klaris sucks in a deep, shuddering breath, and whatever the moment _is_ , it snaps.

Eliaza turns away slightly, throat dry. “How?” she croaks out, but she does not know if she remembers what she’s asking about.

Ayis looks between them with vague interest, then faces Eliaza entirely, face completely straight. “Courel is sacred land,” she explains. “ _Maluus_ can’t get there, and even if they could, it would break our pact we have formed with them. As well, we value human life above all else, as it is our job, essentially. We would do everything in our power to keep you protected.”

Eliaza’s limbs pull with exhaustion, a deep sort of tiredness that does not come with a lack of sleep, but rather from the heavy weight of merely existing.

“Fine,” she mutters after a moment. “As long as I can get back home soon. I promised my dad—” She stops herself, chest seeming to collapse in on itself. Eyes prickling, she glances at the moonlace flower Arden had drawn on her.

_It represents a guardian absent in form,_ he said. _All beings need rest_.

“We don’t want to keep you,” Areya assures her. “We would merely like to help.”

Klaris walks up beside Eliaza, grabbing her elbow very gently. From her fingertips comes a strange—albeit welcoming—warmth, seeming to seep into Eliaza’s skin. An odd look flickers across Klaris’s face, but it is gone as quickly as it was there, and Eliaza is suddenly unsure whether or not it had really been there at all.

“I’ve got you,” Klaris whispers, and she is very close, and yet somehow very far away. A kinetic sort of energy seems to burn between them, inexplicable and yet very natural. Everything around them seems to slow, and then Klaris twists them both on their feet, and white light explodes around them, a bizarre sort of heat radiating off of it.

The vague feeling of Klaris remains, but it is less a solid touch and more like an echo of one, an imprint of what was once there. Despite this, Eliaza finds herself focussing entirely on that feeling, on Klaris, on her familiarity...

The heat disappears very suddenly, the light disappearing on the same cool breeze. She feels herself tip forward slightly, but Klaris catches her before she can fall, and she straightens up, jerking her arm away in slight embarrassment.

Ayis and Areya stand behind them.

“This way,” Ayis says, moving past them and making her way forward briskly.

Klaris shoots Eliaza a concerned look, but follows Ayis without another word. Eliaza watches her back for a moment, then lets out a shaky breath and follows.

This place—Courel, she is sure she’s supposed to believe it is—is full of bright light, a naturally sunny and cheerful dwelling. People wander around, chatting with others along narrow streets. Around them is grass, but the streets are a dusted white, the sort of colour one might see of clouds. Ayis leads them down what seems to be the main trail, larger and busier than the rest. Up ahead of them is a large, looming building, but, compared to some Eliaza has seen, it is not _huge_. In comparison to the other building scattered around them, though, it’s gigantic.

They come to its entrance, and Ayis opens the door, allowing Klaris to take the full lead. The building is tall and grand on the inside as well, made of polished white marble and with a chandelier lighting up the main area. Ahead, two curved staircases lead up to the next floor, joining at the top.

“This is the main hall,” Areya explains behind her. “The council is upstairs. It would normally take a while for them to see us, but Klaris has connections, so to speak, so they should let us in immediately.”

Connections? Eliaza blinks, looking at Klaris’s back as she makes her way towards the left staircase. She doesn’t look much older than Eliaza herself is, but if she really _is_ a Vican...

She shakes the thought away. It’s completely implausible, of course. All the stories are woven for people like Bellis, who _need_ something to believe in. To people like Eliaza, they’re bullshit, completely and utterly.

Perhaps it’s all a dream, she thinks as she picks her way up the stairs behind Klaris, and yet she could not possibly dream something so real, so intense.

Her dreams have always been messy, scary things. As a child, nightmares were a frequent occurrence, dreams of war and bloodshed and death. Clarity, of course. She has always yearned for clarity. As she grew older, she began to drink a specialized herbal tea that was supposed to ward of evils. Since she started drinking it, her dreams have lessened in violence, but they never seem to dissipate entirely. It’s just always been something she’s dealt with.

This, she does not know how to deal with.

The next floor is an open space, a majestic double-door covered in reflective glass at the end of it.

“Wait here,” Klaris says as they approach, and she opens the left door quietly, slipping in and closing it behind her very gently.

“Klaris is in training to sit on the council in her father’s place,” Areya tells her. “In thirty-three years, she’ll shadow his position, but now she is far too young. Nonetheless, she holds influence over them, as a council-member-to-be.”

Eliaza tries to think of something intelligent-sounding to say, but fails and opts instead to simply remain silent and impassive, watching the doors ahead.

Within seconds, they open up again, all the way this time, showing Klaris, who offers a smile.

“Come in,” she says. “The council would like to see you.”

Eliaza glances uneasily at Areya, who gives her a reassuring smile, then makes her way slowly towards the doors before realizing Ayis and Areya aren’t following. She turns to them, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but Klaris touches her arm and redirects her attention.

“They have no need to come,” Klaris says quietly. “I can recount our side of what happened in their place. I’m sure they won’t leave.”

The doors close behind them and she’s forced to look ahead at the room in front of her. A round table sits a few feet away from them, with seven people—Vicans?—seated there. Each wears a coloured cap—three of them red, three of the blue—but the one at the “head” of the table wear a white one with a golden seam embroidered around it and a golden wrap around his shoulders.

The one dressed in gold stands and makes his way around the table, outstretching a hand towards her.

“My name is Pytar,” he says as she takes his hand and shakes it warily. “I lead the council. Klaris said there was something you wanted to ask of us.”

Eliaza blinks. “Uh, I...”

“This is Eliaza,” Klaris says hastily. “She says she’s human, but she doesn’t feel like it to us. We found her at the _coupus_.”

Pytar doesn’t look away from Eliaza. “Why were at the _coupus_ , if you’re human?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Eliaza mutters, feeling suddenly very bitter. Raising her voice, she adds, “My mother is obsessed with Vicans. She wanted to find Courel.”

Something inconceivable flickers across Pytar’s face. “Your mother?”

“She was taken by—by these _things_ —”

“ _Maluus_ ,” Klaris clarifies. “We think they took her to Ioufel as a sacrifice or bargaining tool.”

“Eliaza, was there anything about your mother that was abnormal? Anything supernatural, by human standards, about her?”

“ _She’s a seer!_ ” people have always said, while others shook their heads and argued, “ _No, she’s a_ Vican _!_ ” And yet, they all came to the same conclusion: Bellis is _special_. Some say it’s a blessing, where others speculate that she gave something very grand in exchange for such ability.

Eliaza Wolfert is an expectation.

Eliaza sometimes does not feel like a Wolfert.

“She told me she could see _ama_ ,” Eliaza says. A deep sort of loathing that is not entirely directed at her mother stirs through her. “She never did tell me much, otherwise.”

Pytar glances at one of the blue council members. “Faortia, join us, will you?”

The woman stands and makes her way over, bowing deeply to both Pytar and Klaris. “As you desire, _domies_.”

“Our affairs with the _maluus_ have been poor as of late,” Pytar tells Eliaza. “Faortia is a prophet. She gave a prophecy thirty-seven years ago that we have reason to believe regards the oncoming—admittedly, most likely inevitable—war between Courel and Ioufel.” He glances at Faortia. “Please tell them the prophecy.”

Faortia nods and steps forward, taking a deep breath. Her eyes flutter closed and her face screws up in concentration before almost immediately smoothing out again.

“ _Magiely, sajust naia_.   
“ _Desu paneri, eyou dimour moraia._ _  
_ “ _Cabsigur yi mantous amiy cynes._   
“Vicernies teynre, lyx salnes.”

Cold seems to run through the room. Eliaza’s hands tremble at her sides.

_Great leader, born of blood,_ _  
_ _Half the god, half the mortal,_ _  
_ _Rise from the ashes of a mother’s love_   
To vanquish the dark, to save the light.

“You think all of this has something to do with me,” she says flatly, but there is no point in asking.

“The _fambrias_ don’t choose everything,” Pytar says quietly. “Sometimes, when people are born, something manifests inside of them. We call it _melviate_ and _cariste_ , the former representing _badness_ and the latter and absence of it.”

Eliaza crosses her arms over her chest. “That’s stupid,” she says. “Nobody has an absence of badness.”

“An absence of ill-intention, then?” He lays his hands out in front of him, as if to show he has nothing to offer her. “Regardless, it manifests inside of people. _Melviate_ brings people closer to darkness. In turn, it draws _maluus_ to them, and they embrace it openly. _Cariste_ , on the other hand, bring people closer to light, but makes them more susceptible to the mind tricks of the _maluus_. People with high amounts of _cariste_ often have frequent nightmares or bad dreams. A very, very high amount of it might allow them to have special abilities, similar to that a Vican might have. Such as the ability to see _ama_.”

“So, what? You think my mom has this _cariste_ thing?”

“It’s incredibly likely, yes.”

“Bullshit,” she spits. “My mom can’t see fucking _ama_. She’s just a _person_. And, anyway, if people with this _cariste_ stuff have nightmares or whatever, then it seems a lot more likely _I_ have it than she does. Nothing _bad_ has ever happened to my mom except for _right now_ , and the way you say it makes it sound like—”

“Eliaza, calm down.” Klaris lays a concerned hand on her arm, but the touch elicits nothing as Eliaza is expecting it to. Klaris pauses too, clearly just as surprised, then clears her throat and says, “Let’s backtrack a little bit. Your mother can see _ama_ , right? But you can’t?”

“Of course I can’t!” Eliaza scowls, momentary confusion vanishing. “It’s not _real_. My mom—” Eliaza shakes her head, breaths coming heavy. “My mom is smart, that’s all. She’s a fucking genius. She should be smarter than—than _this_ , but she’s chased mythology since I was born.”

“This is pointless,” Pytar says softly. “Eliaza, until you accept us, we cannot help you. In that time, your mother’s situation will only grow more and more dire. Open your mind, if only for a few days.”

Eliaza’s heart drops to her feet. “What? No, my mom—”

“We will talk to the _fambrias_ ,” he tells her, holding up a hand. “They may be able to offer us information we otherwise couldn’t receive. Until then, perhaps you ought to rest. Come back tomorrow.”

Eliaza’s head is spinning.

“Come on,” Klaris says gently, guiding her towards the door. “There’s still time. Your mother will be fine for a few hours while you sleep.”

She cannot find it in herself to argue, yet something very ghastly rises in her chest, a flood in a hollowed out section of her body. It is not quite anger and not quite sorrow, but it feels very much like both. Her legs tremble and her lip quiver, and before she knows it, tears are brimming in her eyes.

Frustration with herself explodes inside of her. Her mother could be dead, and here she is, _crying_ about it when she should be acting, trying to find Bellis and _bring her home_ . Yet she is not sure she even knows Bellis is gone at all, if she has even realized that she is very far away from home, that her life is suddenly not the one she was living mere hours ago. Nightmares and voices and Bellis’s fervent belief, all swept aside for _this_ , this place she is supposed to believe is Courel and the council and _Vicans_ and in the middle of it all, between all the chaotic transfers, is—

Is _clarity_.

Klaris pauses outside the doors and turns to face her, hands touching her shoulders. Though she knows Ayis and Areya stand very close, Eliaza is sure it is just them, and she looks up at Klaris’s face, unable to keep her tears from falling.

Klaris watches her as if in a trance, then slowly moves a hand up and wipes at her tears carefully.

“We’ll find your mother,” she promises, voice so quiet Eliaza would not have been able to hear if she had been standing any further away.

But she is standing very close. Klaris’s breath tickles against the exposed skin of her neck. All the words they have forgotten how to say dance between them. Klaris hand trembles slightly against Eliaza’s cheek.

Eliaza can hardly breathe. All there is are Klaris’s eyes, golden, the brightest stars Eliaza has ever seen.... She reaches up slowly and touches Klaris’s hand, steadying it. Her skin is warm and soft, and their touch is somehow electrifying, small pinpricks of energy flowing between them, as though together they are a river, and the distance between them a large dam….

Klaris takes a deep, shuddering breath, then steps back. The absence of her hand is jarringly cold. Suddenly, all the gold is melting away, and there is just bland, monotonous grey. Eliaza wants to speak, but her voice fades away before she can even open her mouth. Her eyes itch, but she can hardly remember why.

“I’m sorry,” Klaris says shakily. “We should go.”

Eliaza can only stare as she turns and makes her way to Ayis and Areya, who are respectfully not saying anything (although, even from this distance, Eliaza can see Areya’s is avoiding their gazes, looking decidedly uncomfortable). Klaris glances back, and her eyes light up with breathtaking sorrow. Eliaza cannot feel her heart beating anymore.

Dizziness washes over her and she lunges for the door behind her. Her vision, gold and then grey, seems to be blackening around the edges. Her breaths come out slightly laboured. Her heartbeat comes back full force, a pulsation throughout her entire body that she feels can hardly keep her on her feet.

Ayis takes a step closer, and the sound of her foot slapping against the floor seems to reverberate through Eliaza’s body, from the bottom to the top.

“Eliaza?” Ayis asks. Her voice seems to vibrate slightly. Eliaza holds herself closer to the door, pressed firmly against it.

Ayis is coming closer, but her shape seems to be fading, fading, fading...

A hand reaches out in front of her, but before Ayis can touch her, she is losing her grip, and all there is, is darkness.

* * *

When she wakes up, she is not in her home.

The air reeks of lavender and lemon, which somehow together make a very refreshing, calming scent. She takes a deep breath, and lets herself relax, her hands unclenching and her shoulders sinking into the mattress. Though she has just woken up, the aroma seems to be coaxing her back into sleep, gently whispering around her, pulling her further and further...

“You’re awake.”

Eliaza jumps, then sits up and faces the person, and she is suddenly far from sleepy.

Klaris won’t meet her eyes as she comes closer, sitting at a chair by the bed. “You’re probably hungry,” she says quietly. “Ayis said she would bring something along.”

Eliaza studies her for a moment. “How long have I been sleeping?” she asks.

“A few hours,” Klaris says. “And I don’t know if I would call it sleeping, exactly.”

Eliaza blinks. She remembers nothing but the overwhelming darkness and...everything before that.

“You were tossing and turning,” Klaris explains. “You must’ve been dreaming.”

“I don’t remember,” Eliaza says. She stares down at her hands, lying motionless in her lap. “I usually don’t.”

Klaris seems to hesitate a moment, then says, “You said, earlier, about how your mother didn’t have nightmares. But the way you said it made seem like you _do_.”

Eliaza glances up at her, and now Klaris’s eyes meet hers, shining, shining, _golden_. She can’t breathe for a moment, and then she turns her head away. “I do,” she says stiffly. “I always have.”

“I’ve never dreamed,” Klaris says, wistful. Eliaza whirls to face her again, but now she stares up above them in sorrowful consideration.

“That’s not possible,” Eliaza says quietly. “Everybody dreams. When you think you aren’t, you just aren’t remembering.”

Klaris lowers her gaze, lips twitching in slight amusement. “No, we don’t dream. Dreams are dictated by _maluus_ and _melviate_ . Primarily the bad ones, of course, but since we have no _melviate_ at all, and the influence of the _maluus_ can’t reach here, we don’t dream at all.”

Eliaza’s throat feels very dry. It should not be possible, and yet it is all here.

_All beings need rest_.

“I thought that is was _cariste_ that makes people have bad dreams,” Eliaza says, the words feel heavy and foreign on her tongue.

Klaris smiles lightly at the way she trips over the words, but she nods. “Because it makes people like you more susceptible to _mayuum_ —that is, the higher form of _melviate_ . It’s essentially the same thing, but it impacts _demors_ . The opposite— _calest_ —exists as well. We—Vicans, that is—have _calest_ , the way humans can have _melviate_ or _carist_ , whereas _maluus_ are beings purely made of _mayuum_.”

“ _Maluus_ aren’t _demors_ ,” Eliaza points out.

“ _Maluus_ are kind of like _demors_ ,” Klaris says. “It’s...complicated. Essentially, _maluus_ do bidding for _actual demors_.”

“Actual _demors_ ,” Eliaza echoes. “Like Vicans?”

“Kind of.” Klaris frowns. “They’re called Ruveeds. Some people say they’re like versions of us gone wrong, but they’ve existed as long as we have. I think they’re their own race entirely, personally. As Vicans, we don’t have anything like _maluus_ . But Ruveeds use _maluus_ to communicate with humanity. Or, they used to. We prohibit _maluus_ from leaving the _coupus_ now, because it was interfering with what the _fambrias_ were doing. It’s been thousands of years since _maluus_ have left the _coupus_. Humans seem better for it.”

Eliaza cannot help but think that, if Bellis were here, she would be over her head with excitement, but then she feels a tightness in her chest, and she drops the thought entirely.

“So, a war between Courel and Ioufel...?”

“Would be a war between Vicans and Ruveeds,” Klaris finishes. “It’s all very difficult to explain. Even I don’t understand entirely.”

“How old are you?” Eliaza asks, then realizes what she’s said and hastens to add, “I’m sorry. I—”

“I’m seventeen,” Klaris says. “I’m still learning, too. In thirty-three years, I’ll move up to a position on the council beside my father. In fifty after that, I’ll be the new head.”

Eliaza almost laughs at this. When she is one hundred years old, she will likely either be dead, or so close to it that it will be pointless to want to continue living anyway. Instead, she nods thoughtfully and asks, “So, your father is...?”

“Pytar, yeah.” Klaris stands up and smiles down at Eliaza. “We can talk more later. It’s late. Ayis will be here soon, and then you should try and get more sleep.” She pauses, considering Eliaza for a moment. Then, voice lowered, she adds, “As long as you’re in Courel, you likely won’t remember your dreams. Having a high concentration of _cariste,_  you definitely will still dream, but being surrounded by _calest_ makes it pretty unlikely they’ll reach you properly. I promise I’ll explain it all after.”

Eliaza has no time to respond before she is rushing out of the room, and instead takes the time to accurately survey the room.

It is purely white, it seems. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, the sheets, the bedframe...all of it, and _blindingly_ so.

There is no door, but a hallway leads out from the room. Eliaza considers it for a moment, but before she can decide if she’s going to leave the room or not, Ayis is at the entrance, leaning against the wall, watching her cautiously.

“Areya and I brought you something to eat,” she says. “If you’re up for it, of course. You don’t really look that great, though, you know.”

Eliaza scowls. “Whatever,” she says. “Where’s Areya?”

“Outside.” Ayis pushes herself up and narrows her eyes at her. “But I want to ask you something before we go out and meet him.”

“Ask me _what_?”

Ayis comes towards her and bends down so that they are very close. Her nose almost hits Eliaza’s, and she refrains—but barely—from recoiling away. Ayis’s eyes are very bright, very blue, and they seem to search Eliaza’s, as if there is something in them that she is trying to get out.

Ayis doesn’t say anything for a long, but then she steps back, looking very satisfied, and asks, “You can see my _ama_ , can’t you?”

Eliaza stands, something very dangerous sweeping through her chest. “No,” she says, jaw clenched tightly. “And I would prefer if you would quit treating me like I’m anything other than what I am, and that is _human_.”

Ayis shakes her head. “You _aren’t_ ,” she insists. “At first, it looked like you could be disguising your _ama_ , but it would be impossible to for such a long time. Not to mention—”

“Ayis, what are you doing?”

Ayis whirls around to face Areya, and he pushes past her to see Eliaza, then fixes Ayis with something of an exasperated gaze.

“Leave her alone, Ayis.” He pushes a hand against her shoulder. “You’re doing no good by pushing her.”

“I’m not pushing her!” Ayis ignored his grip on her, eyes wild. “Areya, _you_ said—”

“I said I can see her _ama_ ,” Areya tells her. “Nothing more.”

Ayis seems to deflate slightly. Her eyes drift to Eliaza very briefly, then she look back Areya and nods. “Fine,” she says. “But I know I’m not wrong.”

She squeezes past Areya and stalks out of the room.

Eliaza watches her for a moment, then frowns up at Areya. “I don’t understand,” she says, annoyed. “Before, it was like she thought I was _evil_ or something, but now—”

“Ayis is obsessed with knowing,” Areya says quietly. “She wanted to be a _fambria_ , but the council rejected her. They told her she didn’t have the right _ama_ , but she keeps trying anyway.”

“I don’t know how you put up with that,” Eliaza mutters.

Areya smiles slightly. “She’s my sister,” he explains. “And my _aluum_.”

Eliaza starts. “ _Aluum_?” she repeats. “How can Vicans have _aluums_?”

Areya’s smile slips away and he blinks at her. “I thought you might still be denying everything,” he says. “You seemed pretty against it all.”

“I am,” Eliaza says quickly. “I just—I want my mother back, and Pytar said that unless I could approach this as if it’s all _real_ , I’m only worsening the situation. That’s not to say I believe in any of it, exactly.” She purses her lips. “And I’m not saying I never believed at all, either. I have my reasons for not wanting it to be real, you know.”

“I see.” Areya’s lips twitched slightly. “Anyway, yes, Vicans have _aluums_. We have _ama_ , after all. We feel all the same emotions as humans. We’re just more physically capable, long-lived, and magical, by your standards.”

“And you have wings, right?” Eliaza sighs. “This is exhausting to keep up with. None of my mother’s research said this shit.”

He laughs. “Then, I suppose when you get her back, you’ll be able to expand it all for her, right?”

She blinks. It had not even crossed her mind, but if she were to take this all in stride, accept it as truth, she would be _more_ than Bellis. She is here, now, in Courel, where Bellis could never be. She is here, now, in the company of Vicans, learning all there is to know, and she is _more_.

“Yeah,” she says, and she cannot help but grin. “I guess you’re right.”

His gaze as curious as she moves past him, but there is nothing else to say anymore.

Eliaza Wolfert is an expectation.

But Eliaza is so much more.

* * *

She is staying in Ayis and Areya’s home, she quickly learns. Their familiarity with the place is somehow comforting for her, and she is reminded somewhat of her own home. Ayis and Areya are the first non-romantic _aluums_ Eliaza has ever met, but there is no doubt the know each other inside and out.

Bellis and Arden have always complimented each other in amazing ways. They exist very harmoniously for such vastly different people, and they always know exactly what the other needs. Except, of course, when it comes to Bellis’s grand, fortunate existence.

Ayis and Areya, though, look so much more together and Arden and Bellis ever could. It’s strange, almost, to think of them living together so happily, when they are undoubtedly brother and sister, but, then, when she watches them, it’s not strange at all. The point of _aluum_ is not to show the person you are destined to be in love with, but the person you are destined to love the most, out of everyone.

Then, when Eliaza looks at Areya, she finds that his eyes hold the same deep blue that Ayis’s do. Perhaps it is a matter of them being siblings, but she finds there is something far deeper, an underlying sparkle that says more about them than anything else.

They are, in every sense, two halves of a whole.

They bicker and they push each other around and Eliaza is sure that, in every universe, they are meant to be best friends. They work around each other, a team solidified by countless years of being around one another. Over the course of their meal, Eliaza learns that they are about two hundred years old, and that Klaris is currently living with them.

She is not sure how to handle either thing.

Klaris, before she can shadow her father on the council, must undergo training in general magic. She was with them at the _coupus_ because she needed to learn how to patrol the area, not because she was part of their patrol team.

“Parents never teach their children the primary lessons,” Areya explains. “It’s like when humans send their children to school.”

“But kids who go to school come home every night,” Eliaza points out.

“Not all of them,” Ayis says, shrugging. “It promotes personality growth. Pytar specifically asked that we teach Klaris, because he didn’t want her growing up around council members or people directly associated with council members. So she could learn her own opinions.”

“How long has she been here, then?”

Areya frowns. “A few years?” he guesses. “Since she was ten, I think.”

“And she’s here until...?”

“She’s fifty,” Ayis says. Catching Eliaza’s look, she grins. “It’s not that long to us. We never die.”

“That’s optimistic,” Areya mutters. “You’re assuming I’m never going to snap and kill you.”

Eliaza snorts and Ayis looks between them in offence before sighing and dropping her shoulders.

“I think you should being talking to Klaris about this,” Ayis says quietly. “She went to visit her parents. She’ll be back here, come morning.”

Eliaza thinks of Klaris’s eyes, of her smile, of her whispered words of reassurance. Her touch, her breaths against Eliaza’s skin...

Of the way she pulled away from Eliaza, the deep, aching sadness that forced her away.

“I don’t think she likes me,” Eliaza blurts.

Ayis and Areya share a baffled look, and she ducks her head, cheeks burning.

“It’s just...I don’t know. It’s like she’s scared of me.”

Ayis laughs. “I’m sure she is,” she says lightly. “You aren’t exactly friendly.”

Eliaza hardly hears her. “Maybe scared is the wrong word,” she murmurs. “It’s like...it’s like she...” Frustrated, she runs a hand through her hair, pulling at the roots slightly. “I don’t understand her,” she finishes, scowling down at the table.

“You don’t know her,” Areya points out.

Eliaza starts.

_Do I know you?_

Klaris’s eyes...golden, shining, golden...

_I think I would have remembered._

She meets Areya’s eyes and smiles thinly. “You’re right,” she says. “I’m clearly a little overtired. Do you mind?”

He studies her curiously for a moment, then nods slightly, and she stands and makes her way back down the hall, to the room she woke up in before.

Though her head is spinning, she seems to fall asleep immediately, the now slightly fading scent of lavender and lemon washing over her.

All through the night, gold haunts her dreams.

* * *

 “...going to tell her no.”

Eliaza is sitting up before she registers the voices, then immediately regrets the action.

Ayis turns away from Klaris, frowning. “Right,” she says. “I’ll be in the other room. Areya’s fixing something to eat.”

Klaris sighs and comes up to Eliaza. She watches her a moment, then sits in the chair beside the bed and offers a vague smile.

“Do you feel ready to talk to the council again?”

Eliaza rubs the sleep from her eyes. “What were you talking about?”

Klaris waves a dismissive hand. “It was nothing. Just some gossip, you know?”

“Right.” Eliaza looks away from her. “So you shouldn’t have a problem telling me, regardless, then?”

“It’s not your business,” Klaris says stiffly. “You wouldn’t know what I was talking about, anyway.”

Eliaza turns and faces her fully, meeting her eyes. Green, gold, green, gold. “Wouldn’t I?” she breathes out, leaning closer.

Klaris shudders, but doesn’t look away. “You would,” she says quietly. “I just don’t think I should tell you.”

Eliaza pushes herself to her feet, bending down so that her face is only inches from Klaris’s. “Why not?”

Klaris seems to hesitate only a moment before she reaches a hand out, tracing along the shape of Eliaza’s cheekbones, of her jaw, then brushing lightly over her lips. Eliaza can _feel_ the shift of power, even before Klaris stands up and draws Eliaza up to her full height.

Her breaths feel very finite, suddenly.

“You won’t want to hear from me,” Klaris says.

If either of them were to move any closer, there would be no space left between them. Eliaza has never wanted like this. Her fingers tingle with unhinged desire. Her legs tremble with something that is not quite anxiety.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t want to hear from you,” Eliaza whispers.

Klaris steps back from her, turning her gaze away. “Stop,” she says, weak and fragile. Her voice shakes.

“Stop _what_?” Eliaza demands, shoulders snapping up, all the strange feeling evaporating within an instant. “Just tell me the truth! All my life, information has been dangled over my head, and I’m _tired_ of it! I’m not a little kid!”

When Klaris faces her again, the pain on her face is so raw it’s heartbreaking.

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

Eliaza’s cheeks burn. “It’s not just me!” she argues. “You—”

“You’re human,” Klaris says flatly. “You’re naturally attracted to divinity. I’m young and naïve. I’m naturally attracted to the unknown. Just because you _feel_ like a Vican doesn’t mean you _are_ one.”

It should not hurt, and yet it does.

_You don’t know her_.

Eliaza’s shoulders feel very tight. “I know,” she says quietly. “Please tell me the truth.”

Klaris is silent for a long moment, then she sighs. “You want to go home, right?”

Eliaza glances down at her arm. The moonlace is smudged badly, almost completely unrecognizable. “Yes,” she says. “More than anything.”

Something flashes in Klaris’s eyes, but she smothers it before Eliaza can name what it is. “But you heard the prophecy. They think it has to be about you.”

Eliaza looks up in alarm. “My dad—”

Klaris shakes her head. “My father says the _fambrias_ know something about you and your family, but he says that, after finding out the information, he can’t let you leave. Not until the war has begun, and not until it’s over.”

“That’s not his choice,” Eliaza says.

“No,” Klaris agrees. “There’s no such thing as choice.”

Something very angry, very foul, rises in Eliaza’s chest.

“That’s bullshit,” she says fiercely. “There’s always a choice. Fate is just a _concept_. It doesn’t mean I have to follow it blindly.”

Klaris tilts her head in interest, then laughs a little. “It’s not that easy,” she says. “I’m no _fambria_ , but I can tell you that choices and fate are not different things.”

“If I want to go home, I’m going to go home.” Eliaza scowls and pushes past Klaris.

“What if they don’t let you go?” Klaris asks, and she freezes.

“ _Let_ me?” Eliaza whirls around. The hurricane in her chest will not calm. She does not know if she wants it to. “Nobody else is going to dictate _my_ life but _me_ . The only thing _I_ have to believe in is _myself_.”

“Your beliefs don’t change fact,” Klaris challenges. “Your beliefs can’t make the world work any differently.”

Eliaza looks her over with narrowed eyes.

“Then why,” she says, taking a dangerous step forward, “don’t you believe in _aluums_?”

It is a shot into the dark. The words don’t fit in her mouth, yet, somehow, there is nothing _wrong_ to say to Klaris, not now, not ever. She knows they are the truth, the way she knows to breathe. Her pulse pounds beneath her skin, but she cannot look away from Klaris, cannot see anything but gold.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Klaris mutters, and she knows she is not wrong.

Eliaza smiles slightly. “So I’ve heard,” she says. “But I’m not wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” Klaris allows. “But it’s a lucky guess.”

Eliaza steps back again. “Okay,” she says, and Klaris looks up in vaguely concealed surprise. “But you haven’t answered the question.”

“That’s not fair,” Klaris tells her. “You haven’t told me anything.”

Eliaza spreads her hands out in front of her. “You haven’t asked.”

Klaris stares at her a moment, then lets out a small bubble of laughter. “Okay,” she says. “I don’t believe in _aluums_ because I don’t think having the same soul should mean you have to love them.” She pauses, then asks, “Why don’t _you_ believe in _anything_?”

Eliaza grins. “That sounds like you don’t like fate much. What happened to there being no such thing as choices?”

“I’m not saying I don’t think we all have a predetermined course. I mean, the _fambrias_ choose for the good of the world. I’m saying I can do anything I’m meant to do without a person by my side.”

“I see.” Eliaza rubs at her neck, thinking. “I guess I’m not saying I don’t believe,” she says after a long moment. “I’m just saying I wish, for once, my mother was wrong about something.”

Klaris stares at her for a moment, and then whatever strange tension that surrounds them falls away, and they are both suddenly laughing.

“We’re not that different,” Klaris says finally, smiling thinly. “You’re just more...”

“Cynical?” Eliaza suggests wryly.

“I was going to say open about it, but that works, too.” Klaris’s smile fades, and she glances at the hall again before looking to Eliaza. “I’m sorry,” she offers. “It was wrong of me to blame you for...that.”

Eliaza bites her lip. “I’m leaving as soon as my mother is safe and we can get home again. We promised we would come back.”

For a moment, there is silence. Something very dark covers Klaris’s eyes, then she sucks in a deep breath, half sounding as if she is hurt and half sounding as if she is relieved.

“I know,” she says, sugary and sweet in a way Eliaza has not heard her speak before. “I’ll do anything I can to help you. That’s what we’re here for, after all. Our existence is based on humanity’s.”

Eliaza opens her mouth to say something, then realizes she doesn’t know what she can. Before she can even begin to form a coherent thought, Klaris is gone, squeezing past her and making her way through the hall without so much as a whisper.

There are inexplicable things in the world. There are mysteries and there are explorers, who make it their mission to find the truth. Eliaza has never fancied herself an explorer. Bellis, who makes maps and writes essays and screams out myth in hope there is _something_ , is an explorer.

Eliaza thinks, sometimes, she wants nothing more than to be her own person. She thinks, sometimes, that she would give anything to step away from her mother and her mother’s name and her mother’s legacy.

But right now, she cannot help but think that that is all wrong.

Eliaza has never felt more like a Wolfert.

* * *

When Eliaza was five, she would’ve followed her mother to the ends of the world.

To some extent, she still does—it is, after all, the same thing that brought her to the _coupus_ —but it was so much more meaningful before. Before, being a follower meant more than walking behind her mother. Then, it was a matter of ideals. Now, it is about how they clash.

Eliaza believed in Vicans, once. Believed that they had given her this life. Back then, it was like everything was _brighter_. It is, of course, the smeared memories of youth, but Eliaza knows, somehow, that things were different when she believed.

By the time she was ten, she had learned to hate them, and the world had never been duller.

The Vicans had stolen her mother from her.

The Vicans had stolen _everything_ from her.

It is easier, of course, to blame something else for one’s own shortcomings. Where she had failed, she could hate the Vicans for it. Where her mother had failed, she could hate the Vicans for it.

After all, there’s fate and there are choices.

And between it all, there have always been the Vicans.

* * *

The _fambrias_ are the first Vicans she meet who look like the godly beings depicted in ancient text.

Though Klaris had said they had wings, Eliaza has yet to see them. She’s come to the assumption that they have some sort of on-and-off switch.

The _fambrias,_ however, have heavenly wings, white and glistening, though they are clearly just as retractable or whatever as everybody else’s. They spread wide in greeting, but otherwise remain folded neatly behind them.

“ _They’re show-offs_ ,” Ayis told her earlier, scowling, before Areya hit her on the shoulder and said, kindly, to Eliaza, “ _They’re whatever you decide they are_.”

Looking at them now, Eliaza decides they are definitely show-offs.

“The _fambrias_ have every single human in the world recorded,” Pytar explains. “Including your entire extended family.”

“I know about my extended family,” Eliaza says, annoyed. “They’re geniuses. They did great things for the intellectual world.”

“We do not dictate which humans are bad or good,” the _fambria_ in the middle of the group says quietly. “But we can sense it when they are born.”

“Your family, the Wolferts,” says another, “have always had high concentrations of _cariste_ . Bellis, however, was born with small traces of _calest_.”

“ _Calest_?” Eliaza frowns, then looks back at Klaris, who is standing behind her, close but not close enough to touch. “Like, what Vicans have?”

She nods. “It is possible for a human to possess it, assuming they already have high _cariste_ . Since _calest_ is just a higher form of _cariste_ , it doesn’t necessarily mean that she would be a _Vican_ , but that she would have certain abilities granted to her by it. It would make her _ama_ more profound, of course—which would make her more likable amongst humans—and could grant her abilities, such as that or foresight or being able to see _ama_.”

The middle _fambria_ watches them for a moment, then nods. “You, however, were born with _high_ amounts of _calest_.”

“Is _that_ possible?” Eliaza asks, still looking at Klaris.

She shrugs. “Well, clearly it _is_ , but I’ve never heard of it before.”

“That means that you are, in a sense, one of us,” Pytar tells her. “Of course, we aren’t entirely different from humans. What sets us apart is the _calest_ we possess as well as some slight biological features. _Calest_ isn’t what makes us long-lived, either. To be honest, most of us don’t _really_ know what _cariste_ and _calest_ are capable of doing to a human.”

“You have the same concentration of _calest_ as a Vican like Klaris does,” the _fambria_ adds. She glances at Pytar, hesitating, then turns back to look at Eliaza, offering her a thin smile. “ _Ama_ and _calest_ or _cariste_ have a bit of correlation, but it’s possible to have the same _ama_ as someone without having the same amount of _calest_ as them.”

“A bit of correlation?”

She nods. “Humans can’t see _ama_ , but they can generally feel it. It’s why humans are purely creatures of instinct. If someone’s _ama_ doesn’t feel _good_ , it’s likely they have moderate levels of _melviate_ in them. A natural attraction to someone—particularly those who aren’t naturally charismatic, although _cariste_ and _melviate_ do impact the personality—could imply they have moderate levels of _cariste_ . Any regular human who were to meet a Vican or a Ruveed would be so influenced by the feeling of _calest_ or _mayuum_ that they would do relatively _off_ things. In a case where a human had no _cariste_ or _melviate_ at all, and they met a particularly strong _demor_ , it could probably cause permanent insanity.”

Eliaza frowns. “I don’t understand. You just said that I have the same amount of _calest_ as Klaris. I’m pretty sure I’ve never made anybody do anything out of character.”

The _fambria_ raises an eyebrow. “How would you know?” she asks. “Maybe their out of character seems right to you because _you_ make them out of character.”

Eliaza crosses her arms over her chest. “What about my parents?” she asks. “My mom wouldn’t have been affected, right? What about my dad?”

“Arden has high levels of _cariste_ ,” the third _fambria_ speaks up. “Essentially, your entire extended family has some levels of it. It’s a slightly biological thing, but mostly something that happens out of chance. We have no control over it, but we can foresee what it will make people do. That’s the one part of their fates we _can’t_ change.”

“Then how do you have any control over people’s lives at all?” Eliaza tries not to scoff, but is sure she fails. “If people react differently to people with _cariste_ or _melviate_ , and if people with it do things _because_ they have it, why bother trying to control it? Why both dictating the rest of what happens to them?”

The first _fambria_ laughs. “I’ll tell you a secret,” she says. “There’s no such thing as fate. There are trillions upon trillions of possibilities for every single person in the world. We see every person’s potential futures, and we pick what stands out as the best one, and we subtly encourage each person to live their life with our general influence over humanity. Everything is predetermined, in a sense, but the predetermined doesn’t always stay the same.”

Eliaza stares at her.

Behind her, Klaris shifts, clearly uncomfortable. “Really?” she asks, as if she did not know. It strikes Eliaza that, perhaps, she didn’t. “Is that why only specific Vicans can become _fambrias_? I know Ayis has always been pretty bitter she can’t, and I knew it was because she lacked the skills, but I didn’t know that the skill in particular was foresight.”

“She lacks other things, on top of that,” Pytar says quietly. “She lacks patience. She lacks empathy.”

Eliaza can hardly hear him.

“So, then, was it predetermined that I would come here?” she asks.

The three _fambrias_ looks between themselves, hesitant. “Yes and no,” the one on the left says. “You would always come here, in every possible timeline. The one we were leading you down was not this one—the _maluus_ taking your mother was something we foresaw, but we did what we could to keep her away from the _coupus_.”

“She wasn’t following your path?”

The middle one shakes her head. “We suspect, because of her _calest_ , she was drawn to the _coupus_ without even knowing why.”

“She knew why,” Eliaza mutters. “She wants to be the first person to see Vicans in the flesh.”

“Wanted,” the _fambria_ on the right corrects. “I daresay you’ve taken her place.”

Before Eliaza can even form a coherent response, the one on the left says, “Each time something happens that we did not desire to, we have to change our view of the timeline, so that it best fits the one the person has suddenly found themselves on. You, Eliaza, have a lot of possible ways to go. Your mother, on the other hand...”

Eliaza’s heart beats fast. She suddenly feels rather sick to the stomach.

“Because she is Ioufel,” the middle one says, “we can no longer see her. I would love to make it sound easier, but I offer you now the rawest truth I can. We cannot see her. If she dies, we will never know. We can only know what has become of her once she is outside of the domain of the Ruveeds.”

Eliaza’s ears roar.

“Can I save her?” she asks, holding her shirt—which, she thinks vaguely, she has been wearing for a couple days, now—tightly in fisted hands.

“Yes,” the _fambria_ on the right says, at the same time as the one on the left says, “It would require a sacrifice.”

The one in the middle looks between her two companions in slight amusement before facing Eliaza again.

“There’s a prophecy,” she says. “Pytar has already had Faortia tell it to you.”

Eliaza glances back at Pytar, then nods slowly. “Right,” she says. “He thinks it’s about me.”

“It _is_ about you,” the _fambria_ corrects. “That does not necessarily mean you will follow it.”

“Because there’s not really such a thing as fate?”

“Exactly.” The _fambria_ pauses a moment, considering, then says, “There are countless endings to this. But everything here relies on _you_. The prophecy is vague, therefore it is flexible, but there is nobody else it applies to but you.”

“I don’t understand what it means,” Eliaza says. “I don’t understand the wording or the message or why is _exists_.”

“The prophecy was told by Faortia thirty-seven years ago. On the same day, coincidentally, that your mother was born. We thought it undoubtedly had to mean that your mother, who was born with _calest_ in her body, an unheard of phenomenon, but there were things that did not fit.”

“‘ _Cabsigur yi mantous amiy cynes_ ,’” Eliaza remembers. “‘Rise from the ashes of a mother’s love.’”

The _fambria_ nods. “Bellis’s mother loves her, but the way things were, Bellis was always going to leave her family the way she did.”

Eliaza had met her grandparents only a few times, but she has always understood the reasoning, has always understood why Bellis decided to cut off the majority of her contact with her family, even though she loves them more than words could ever describe. She sometimes thinks she understands too well, and then she sometimes thinks she doesn’t understand well enough.

When Bellis was growing up, she had been an expectation too. She had met her name at the top, and then found a way to climb a little higher. But she had had different dreams than her parents, different goals and ideals and wanted a different way of life. Her sister, Taliyah, had been _better_. Their parents had favoured her, had cast Bellis aside, told her that her aspirations were silly. Of course, Eliaza has always thought Bellis was chasing nothing, but the difference between her and Bellis’s parents was that Eliaza has never told her to stop, even when she thought it was pointless.

Bellis and Eliaza have always been like that: hostile, but not malicious. They love each other enough to challenge each other. Though it is infrequent that Eliaza is _right_ , she finds she does not hold this against her mother. While her mother’s achievements, the way she grew into the name Wolfert and made a living out of what she loves, have always felt far larger than anything Eliaza could ever manage, it is not Bellis she has to blame for feeling—for _being_ —inferior. Her own mind, her own life, her own limitations. Bellis has always believed in her, regardless. Bellis has always been there.

_Clarity_ , she had whispered, torn, and Bellis had held her close, had kept her safe. _I see you_.

_Clarity_.

“And now you think it’s me,” Eliaza finishes, mouth very dry. “That’s not answering my question.”

She had not technically asked a question, she knows, and perhaps it is the tired, aching part of her that finds this very funny, because if this had been Bellis, she would have automatically lost whatever quiet war this was.

“ _Everything we say_ ,” Bellis once said to her, when she was about seven, “ _has to reflect the truth in some capacity_. _The things we believe to be true are still true, as long as we stick by them._ ”

Bellis has always taught her to embrace her opinions, first and foremost. To be _her_ , because it is the best person she could possibly be.

She knows Bellis has made mistakes. She does not love her any less for them.

“We have foreseen your potential futures,” the _fambria_ says, and she sounds a touch sad. “For every prophecy, there exists an opposite outcome. In another timeline, the prophecy speaks to you differently. Perhaps, as this timeline stretches further, you will come to read it differently in this one.” She pauses, looks between Eliaza and Klaris, as if there is something she wishes to say to both of them but does not know how. She takes a deep breath and faces Eliaza entirely. “You will either save Courel, or you will destroy it.”

It is simultaneously all of her dreams and none of them at once. She remembers being eight years old and begging her mother to stay home, to stop looking for Vicans. She remembers being twelve years old and wishing that if there really were Vicans out there, she would love to see them _burn_. She remembers every bad, twisted thought she has ever come up with to war with her own feelings, to avoid placing the blame on herself when she has always been the only person to blame.

She remembers hating the Vicans for taking the one person she loves most away from her.

She glances back at Klaris, who is standing very still. Her eyes are glassy, but she says nothing. She hardly even meets Eliaza’s gaze.

The Vicans are not the reason her mother is gone. The Vicans are not the reason she is dissatisfied with her life, with the fate she has never believed in anyway.

“Please explain further,” she says quietly, and the _fambria_ ducks her head in acknowledgement.

“The prophecy has four lines,” she says. “The first—‘great leader, born of blood’—refers to someone born a human.” She runs a hand through her hair, which is a dull white and very short. “Vicans don’t technically have blood. We do, of course, but it’s not the same as humans. Blood is red, and a symbol of short life. We bleed gold, and it is a symbol of divinity.”

“The next line also implies the person spoken of is the child of a human,” the _fambria_ on the left adds. “‘Half the god, half the mortal.’ The implication, specifically, is that it is a human with _calest_ or _mayuum_. It’s why our assumption was that it would be your mother, but there was never a future in which she fulfilled such a prophecy.”

“‘Rise from the ashes of a mother’s love’ is obvious,” the one on the right says after a moment. “Love has power. It’s why having your _aluum_ is important. They complete you. Your mother is not you _aluum_ , of course, but you still love her, and you have both profoundly impacted each other. That kind of bond is equally as irreplaceable.”

The middle _fambria_ smiles thinly. “The final line, ‘to vanquish the dark, to save the light,’ does not necessarily mean you will be _our_ war hero. Light and darkness are objective. Courel is a holy place, and while it is very light in appearance, it does not mean that it is light in the way that the prophecy describes. In this situation, we assume ‘light’ is synonymous with ‘good.’”

“So, if I thought the Ruveeds were more morally correct than you, I might be _their_ war hero.” Eliaza shakes her head. “That doesn’t seem right.”

“There are infinite outcomes,” she reminds her. “Trillions upon trillions of ways you may wind up fighting for Ioufel instead of Courel.”

“How many ways are there where I don’t do any fighting whatsoever?”

The _fambria_ laughs, but it is not entirely mirthful. “It is not impossible,” she says. “But the chances of you leaving without doing something for your mother are so minimal they are practically nonexistent. You know that, don’t you?”

Eliaza knows a lot of things.

Eliaza knows there is more to be said.

“Why would I fight for Courel if all I want it my mother?” she asks softly. “I have nothing here to fight for.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Klaris make a small movement. She does not have to think to realize the words have somehow hurt her.

She does not take them back.

“You are being dishonest,” the _fambria_ whispers, and it is as though everything else melts away.

People confess to the Vicans through prayer. They confess everything bad they have ever done, every lie they have ever told. The Vicans already know, but perhaps that is the point. It’s far easier to tell the truth to someone who already knows it, than to face the truth before someone who is blatantly denying it.

“I know,” she says, just as quiet. “But someone told me that there shouldn’t be anything a person can’t do on their own, _aluum_ or no.”

She does not miss Klaris’s movement this time, either.

“Wise,” the _fambria_ says. “But there is power in love, and in knowing there is someone who will never leave your side. We are very careful about who we choose to be _aluums_.”

Eliaza smiles wryly. “Then, I suppose there’s nothing to worry about, right? I think I can’t make a decision yet, regardless.”

“It is best not to be hasty,” the _fambria_ agrees. “But time doesn’t stop moving.”

Eliaza turns to face Pytar. “I would like to go to back to Ayis and Areya’s,” she says. “I think this is more than enough to consider for now.”

Pytar nods. “Understood. Klaris will take you back.”

Eliaza looks at Klaris. She cannot help herself but soften slightly.

_Clarity_.

“I’ll find an answer,” she promises, but she is watching Klaris. Golden, golden, golden.

_Clarity_.

Pytar says something else, but she can no longer hear him. Klaris watches her with an equal intensity, and then she looks up, and she smiles.

“You’re strange,” she says. “Sometimes, it’s like you care to the point it could kill you, and other times it’s like you don’t care at all.”

Eliaza doesn’t move. “I believe there is power in emotions,” she says. “I believe that, by openly expressing them, we offer people the truest person we can. I don’t want to be anything other than what I am.”

“But you’re so calm now,” Klaris points out, lowering her gaze and frowning slightly. “Is this not untrue?”

“Maybe,” Eliaza allows, but her lips quirk slightly. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and moves to come ahead of Klaris, to lead the way back.

“Maybe,” Klaris echoes.

Eliaza does not look back at her. “Maybe,” she says again. “Or maybe I just haven’t figured out what to feel yet.”

Klaris says nothing, but a warmth spreads in Eliaza’s chest. Time does not stop for anybody, she knows, but sometimes she cannot help but feel as though she is falling, as though she no longer has a grip on her own life.

There is only thing to keep her from losing herself, and it is this:

_Clarity_.

* * *

Eliaza comes to three realizations that evening, sitting at Ayis and Areya’s table:

First, she no longer wants to deny anything. Bellis’s absence is just as much an absence of her beliefs as it is an absence of Eliaza’s need for something to be _different_ . She did not know Vicans as anything but mythical beings, as the thing her mother has always been obsessed with, but now there is the only the truth: they exist, they have thoughts and feelings and _ama_ , and they are fighting to survive, just like the entire human race.

Second, however, she realizes that while she has pushed aside her beliefs in order to save her mother, they are now changing to fit into this strange new reality anyway. She remembers Arden telling her that she does not deny it could all exist. She remembers telling Bellis she would believe in anything, if it meant they would get out alive. She remembers lashing out at Klaris, Ayis, and Areya, and staying stubbornly stuck in the mindset that it all isn’t real. It is both blatant denial and nothing like denial all at once. Half of what she believed _is_ right, even if the other half is not. She has never wanted to believe in _ama_ , that there is someone out there who has the same soul as her. She has never wanted to believe in fate, that everything in her life was decided by someone else. Bellis always told her not to compromise her beliefs; Bellis always told her that her beliefs have made a pessimist out of her. Bellis is the reason she has always been so passionate. Bellis has taught her more than she otherwise would have learned.

The third thing she realizes is that she does not want to abandon Courel.

She thinks of all dreams she has ever had. She thinks of all the suffering, the war and the bloodshed and the _hatred_ , and she thinks that if she can save people from that in any way, she should.

The _fambria_ told her that she would either save Courel or destroy it. _To save the light, to vanquish the dark._ Eliaza thinks there can be no good ending no matter which path she takes now. It cannot, of course, be impossible for her to just go back home and forget it all, but...

But there is Bellis, down somewhere in the deepest pits of Ioufel.

And here, far above, is Klaris. Klaris, with her golden eyes and her disbelief and her strange heritage. They do not know each other, but they _do_ know each other.

They have always known each other.

Eliaza comes to three realizations that evening, sitting at Ayis and Areya’s table.

One, she was wrong, for all the wrong reasons.

Two, she was right, for all the wrong reasons.

Third, there are things in the world worth dying for. If it means a better future, if it means the survival of the people she loves...

There is nothing, anymore, that she will not do.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are always appreciated! xx


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